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Bonnie and Clyde

Something truly horrific happened in 1930 when Bonnie and Clyde met and began an infamous crime spree in the following two years.

Bonnie Elizabeth Parker was born on October 1st 1910 to her parents Emma and Charles Parker in Rowena, Texas. She was the middle child of three having an older brother and younger sister. When Bonnie was four years old, her father passed away after an accident at work. This led to her mother moving the entire family to Dallas where Emma’s parents lived. At school, Bonnie was described as bright with interests in poetry and literature. She used to perform in school pageants and talent shows singing popular broadway or country songs. Bonnie told her friends’ that her name would be in bright lights one day.

It was in her second year of high school when fifteen-year-old Bonnie met her soon to be husband seventeen-year-old Roy Thornton. The two began a whirlwind romance and were married within the first year of knowing each other. Both dropped out of school to marry on September 25th, 1926 just six days before Bonnie’s sixteenth birthday. In honour of the marriage, Bonnie got both of their names tattooed on her right thigh.

Their marriage didn’t last more than three years becoming strained almost instantly. Roy’s potential affairs, his constant absence and rumoured physical abuse caused the couple to separate in January 1929 and never saw each other afterwards. The two were never divorced. After the separation, Bonnie moved back to Dallas, living with her mother whilst she worked as a waitress.

Soon after this Bonnie would meet Clyde but before we get into that let’s take a quick look into the childhood of Clyde Barrow.

Clyde Chestnut Barrow was born on March 24th 1909 to his parents Henry and Cumie Barrow in Telico, Texas. He was the fifth of seven kids living on their family farm until the 1920s when the farm stopped providing money for the family due to drought. The family moved to Dallas after the farm failed, and Henry went looking for work in the growing city. In the first few months, the entire family lived underneath a wagon before they could afford a tent. Clyde had ambitions of being a musician, learning to play guitar and saxophone whilst he was in school, that was all before dropping out at age sixteen.

After he had left school, Clyde was influenced into a life of crime by his older brother Buck. It started with petty theft, which led to stealing cars which jumped to armed robberies. In late 1926 Clyde went on the run from police over the late return of a rental car, this led to Clyde’s first arrest. Soon after that both Clyde and Buck were arrested for being in possession of stolen turkeys. Despite the crimes that Clyde was committing he still had legitimate jobs through 1927–1929. It wasn’t until late 1929 that Clyde was classed as a fugitive for several robberies and that seemingly stopped his run with lawful jobs.

That brings us to January 5th 1930, the day that Bonnie and Clyde met.

Bonnie was caring for her friend who had broken her arm when Clyde entered the home of mutual friend Clarence Clay. Bonnie was in the kitchen making a cup of hot chocolate when the two met. Both were apparently smitten with each other the second that they made eye contact. In the following weeks, the pair spent a lot of time together until their budding romance was interrupted by Clyde getting arrested and convicted on multiple charges of auto theft.

Soon after his conviction Bonnie committed her first documented crime. She smuggled a gun into the prison and with that weapon, Clyde along with some of his cellmates escaped on March 11th. A week later Clyde and his fellow escapees were caught and put back into prison once again. Clyde was sentenced to fourteen years of hard labour after his capture and transferred to Eastham State Farm to finish out his sentence.

Eastham was a hellish experience for Clyde, an inmate was frequently sexually assaulting Clyde. After having enough of his abuse, Clyde snapped beating his abuser with a pipe, crushing his skull. This would be the first person killed by the hands of Clyde Barrow. He was never charged for the killing as another inmate claimed responsibility, this having no effect on the other inmate as he was already serving a life sentence.

Despite his fourteen-year sentence Bonnie and Clyde continued to build their relationship through handwritten letters that have been described as passionate. It seemed that their budding relationship was a big factor in why Clyde began to plot different ways he could get out of Eastham. What he decided to do was to stage an accident in which he lost his big toe and part of his second toe. This would force him to walk with a limp for the rest of his life and drive in a pair of socks. His “accident” was pointless. Clyde’s mother, Cumie, had managed to talk a judge into granting Clyde parole. He would be released without his toe just two weeks later in February 1932.

After his release, Clyde very briefly worked at a Dallas glass company, he was fired because of police harassment. It seemed that this was the catalyst for the following crime spree. Clyde, Ralph Fults and other local criminals began to rob, gas stations and shops, gathering money and weapons. It is believed that the end goal was to raid Eastham State Farm. At first, Bonnie wasn’t involved with the crimes but that all changed on April 19th.

Bonnie, Clyde and Ralph Fults attempted to rob a hardware store, intending to take the firearms to add to the already growing armoury the gang have gathered. Police Chief David Drennan spotted the trio enter Robert H. Brock’s store, the trio fled without finishing the robbery. Chase began after that. They got in a stolen car and went west. They only got a few miles before the stolen car got stuck in the mud. To continue their escape, the trio hopped onto two mules and set off north towards Kemp. A few further miles passed and the trio stole another car and head back toward Mabank where they had attempted to rob the store. Once again the car got stuck in the mud and without any mules nearby, the three took off on foot shooting at police to hold them off as they approached. The shoot out ended 25 miles away with Fults getting shot and surrendering to police and Bonnie being captured whilst unharmed, Clyde had managed to escape.

The captured pair gave false names to the police, Jack Sherman and Betty Thornton. They were both arrested on terms of mule theft, auto theft and burglary. Whilst awaiting trial was held in Kaufman jail, the Kemp Calaboose, for two months, people stop by and visit the pair, ogling them like caged animals. It was in these two months that Bonnie wrote some of her most famous poems “The Trail’s End” and “Suicide Sal”. At the trial, Bonnie was released after a grand jury failed to indict her. Fults, however, was taken to Wichita Falls to be charged with kidnapping and highway robberies, he was sentenced to five years in jail on each count with the terms to run concurrently.

Whilst Bonnie and Fults were held in jail Clyde was free to do as he pleased and this is when he and a few others committed the Hillsboro Murder.

On April 30th, Raymond Hamilton and Frank Clause went to J.N. Bucher’s shop shortly after midnight, waking Bucher and his wife, Madora. They claimed they wanted to purchase 25 cent guitar strings and Bucher allowed the pair in to make the purchase. Hamilton handed over a ten-dollar bill forcing Bucher to open the safe, the second it was open, a gun was pointed to his back. What the robbers didn’t know was that Bucher kept his pistol inside the safe, he pulled the weapon to try to defend his shop and wife but before he could fire, a bullet was sent through his heart, killing J.N. Bucher instantly. Taking what they could Hamilton and Clause ran from the store, getting into the car Clyde was waiting for them in. He had volunteered to be the getaway driver since he knew Bucher’s son and knew that the couple would be able to recognise him. The group escaped but Madora later identified Clyde as the shooter to the police.

It seemingly went quiet for the Barrow gang aside from their usual small store robberies, they didn’t physically harm anyone during the robberies.

The next notable moment was August 5th, Clyde, Raymond Hamilton and Ross Dyer were drinking moonshine at a country dance in Stringtown, Oklahoma. They hadn’t been doing anything other than hanging out when Sheriff C.G. Maxwell and Deputy Eugene C. Moore approached them. Instantly, Clyde and Hamilton opened fire as they fled, they killed Moore and severely wounded Maxwell. They weren’t caught for the shooting and managed to escape.

Once again there seemed to be a lull in crimes until October 11th, it is rumoured that Clyde and the Barrow gang robbed a suburban grocery in Sherman, Texas.

Howard Hall and Homer Glaze were closing up shop when the robber entered. The pair of workers were left to believe that the robbers were just late-night shoppers as they grabbed some meat and eggs and went to the till. As Glaze opened the till to put the dollar bill inside, one of the robbers pointed a pistol at him and took $50 from the till, by today’s standards that would be $1035.46. Hall protested the robbery but was kicked and struck on the head. Still, Hall continued to fight against the robbers. As the robbers were attempting to leave Hall was struck again, his glasses sent flying out into the street, Hall grabbed the robber’s hand and tried to hold him back. The robber fired four times, hitting Hall three times, the robber then tried to shoot Glaze but the gun jammed and the robbers fled. Outside the store a group of boys told police that the robbers fled in a Sedan with two other people, thus starting the rumour that it was the Barrow gang. Hall died in the hospital soon after the shooting.

The Barrow gang grew again when Bonnie and Clyde took a trip back home to Dallas and visit family. On December 24th, W.D. Jones, a sixteen-year-old that used to steal license plates for Clyde and Buck, joined the gang and left with the couple the same day. The very next day Clyde and Jones attempted to steal a car. Jones spotted a car with keys in the ignition, he attempted to start it but failed most likely due to the cold weather, and Clyde rushed over to help out. Doyle Johnson was close by taking a nap in his car when his family started screaming about the attempted robbery. Johnson grabbed ahold of Clyde shouting back to his family telling them to “call the police” whilst he was shouting Clyde told him to “let go or I’ll kill you”. Johnson ignored the warning and kept trying to stop the robbery from taking place. Doyle Johnson was shot in the neck and Clyde and Jones drove off with the car. Doyle Johnson died in the hospital on December 26th.

March 22nd 1933 was the day Buck Barrow was released from prison with a full pardon. Almost instantly Buck and his wife, Blanche, set Bonnie, Clyde and Jones up in a temporary hideout in Joplin, Missouri. According to the Barrow family, Buck and Blanche were visiting and attempted to get Clyde to surrender but he refused. The group, Buck and Blanche included, continued to play loud card games and drank a case of beer a day, keeping the volume up until late into the night. No neighbours went over to try and stop the racket but one did call the police on the group.

It was on April 13th when a five-man group of police went to confront the group that they thought were bootleggers. When the group realised the police were at the door, Clyde and Jones opened fire killing Detective Harry L. McGinnis outright and fatally wounding Constable J.W. Harryman. Bonnie began to fire with a BAR as the group ran, the rain of bullets caused Highway Patrol Sergeant G.B. Kahler to duck behind an oak tree, wood splinters broke off the tree and went into his face. Bonnie jumped into the car once the officers were down, and then the group grabbed Blanche from the street as she had chased her dog. The group didn’t escape the exchange unharmed. Out of the 14 rounds, police fired, Jones was hit in his side once and Buck was grazed by a bullet ricocheting off the wall. Clyde was hit but the bullet was deflected by his coat button.

The suddenness of the interaction meant most of the gang’s belongings were left behind, these included but weren’t limited to; Buck’s three-week-old parole papers, a large arsenal of weapons and ammo, a handwritten poem by Bonnie and several rolls of undeveloped pictures.

Despite nearly being caught, the Barrow gang continued to rob and kidnap, trying to rebuild what they had left behind. In late April, Dillard Darby and Sophia Stone were kidnapped for Darby’s car. Bonnie was the one insisting that they let the two go free unharmed. So, Clyde drove them out of town and gave them $5 to get home to Ruston, Louisiana. On the drive out of the town, Bonnie told Darby that he should work on her and Clyde’s bodies once they were dead, this came after finding out Darby worked as an undertaker.

The following months were difficult for the gang, public opinion had started to sour and this made it harder for the group to stay in motels as they normally would. The close proximity of staying in one car and sleeping in not so nice places made the group turn on each other, arguments ensued and it reached the point where Jones took Darby’s car and left the group. He didn’t return until June 8th.

Two days after Jones returned, Clyde took a V8 Ford for a joy ride with Bonnie and Jones inside. He was driving at high speeds and didn’t spot the detour sign. The car crashed through a wooden barricade and flipped onto its side, almost into the Salt Fork River. A family on a nearby farm saw the accident and rushed to help out. They pulled Clyde and Jones out of the windscreen and the second they were out, they were more interested in getting guns and ammo out of the boot instead of Bonnie who had severe burns to her right leg. The farmers carried Bonnie to their home where her burns were treated with baking soda and Claverine Salve. Clyde was refusing doctors despite the fact Bonnie’s bone was showing in parts of her leg. One family member drove to nearby town Wellington to inform Collingsworth County Sheriff George Corry and town chief Paul Hardy. When the group returned from Wellington, Clyde pointed an automatic rifle at them the second they entered whilst Jones had a shotgun.

Jones and Clyde forced the policemen into the backseat of the car they came in, loading Bonnie into the middle of the front seat before Clyde drove off with Jones in the passenger seat. After a few miles, Bonnie was moved to the backseat, laid out across the laps of Corry and Hardy. Clyde stopped at a designated meet-up spot where Buck and Blanche were waiting for them. After a short discussion, Buck and Clyde decided to take the policemen out of the way but they let them live because of how they treated Bonnie on the drive out. The pair left the policemen handcuffed to a tree on the side of the road with barbed wire wrapped around them. Thankfully both men survived the ordeal and managed to escape.

Another scrape with capture was in July when the gang checked into the Red Crown Tourist Court just south of Platte City, Missouri. The building was two brick cabins joined together by garages. The gang rented both of them, Blanche paying with coins for the cabins and checking for three. Neal Houser, the owner, spotted five people getting out of the car which was parked in what he described as gangster style. He also spotted the guests taped newspaper up at the windows overnight. Houser informed Captain William Baxter of highway patrol when he visited the tavern just south of the cabins. Further confirming that the group in the cabins was the Barrow gang was when Clyde and Jones headed into town buying bandages, crackers, cheese and atropine sulfate. Stores were put on notice for these exact purchases so the druggist called Sheriff Holt Coffey and he put the cabins under surveillance.

Coffey contacted Baxter to bring in reinforcements and an armoured car from Kansas City, he led a group of officers to the cabins in the vehicle armed with Tommy guns. The gunfight that they planned for was ended when a bullet from a Barrow gang BAR gun short-circuited the armoured car’s horn. This signalled the officers to a cease-fire and allowed for the gang to flee the scene. Once again the gang managed to escape.

It wasn’t with injury though. Buck had a hole in his forehead that left his injured brain exposed and Blanche was nearly blinded by glass shattering in her eyes. The couple along with Bonnie, Clyde and Jones ran until they found an abandoned amusement park, Dexfield Park near Dexter, Iowa. Buck was still alive despite his wound, he was semiconscious occasionally talking and eating by himself. Clyde and Jones dug him a grave near the campsite.

On July 24th, local police and around 100 spectators surrounded the campsite, all wanting to see the capture of the infamous Barrow gang. Whilst under fire Bonnie, Clyde and Jones managed to escape. Buck and Blanche were arrested. Buck was shot a second time, a bullet in his back and Blanche was arrested unharmed aside from her eyes. Five days later Buck died after surgery in Kings Daughter Hospital in Perry, Iowa. His cause of death was his head wound and pneumonia.

Six weeks went by after Buck’s death and the group’s escape, they continued robbing whilst they were on the run, trying to rebuild what they had left behind at Dexfield. They had restocked most of their weaponry back after robbing the armoury at Plattville, Illinois on August 20th. This continued until early September when the gang, Bonnie, Clyde and Jones went back to Dallas to visit family. Jones continued on to Houston since his mother had moved from Dallas to Houston. After spending a month or so with his mother, Jones allowed himself to be arrested without incident on November 16th. Whilst in Dallas, Clyde continued to rob stores around town with small-time, local criminals leaving Bonnie in the care of their families.

On November 22nd, Bonnie and Clyde escaped a police trap where they were set to meet family members near Sowers, Texas. Clyde seemingly had a gut instinct and kept driving by his family in the car. Dallas Sheriff Smoot Schmid, Deputy Bob Alcorn and Deputy Ted Hinton jumped out and opened fire on the car that was driving away, leaving the members of the Barrow family inside the car unharmed. Only one bullet managed to catch the criminals inside the vehicle, going through both Bonnie’s and Clyde’s legs. They once again escaped from the police. Six days later a Dallas grand jury issued a murder indictment against Bonnie and Clyde, this being the first murder that was placed on Bonnie’s head.

Healing as best as they could whilst on the lam, Bonnie and Clyde didn’t do anything drastic until January 16th, 1934. Clyde orchestrated the escape of Raymond Hamilton, Henry Methvin and others from Eastham State Farm. Joe Palmer, one of the escapees, shot Major Joe Crowson during the escape. This put the officer in the hospital in critical condition, a few days later Joe Crowson passed in the hospital. His death was the start of Bonnie and Clyde’s downfall. Over the next few months, police killed every one of the escapees aside from Henry Methvin.

Former Texas Ranger Captain Frank Hamer was assigned to the task of tracking down Bonnie and Clyde, he accepted the request and put onto Highway Patrol as an officer and a Special Investigator of the prison system investigating the escape in Eastham. The papers carried out the news that Frank Hamer was put to kill Bonnie and Clyde, there was no capture order any more. It seemed this story seemingly made the couple spiral out of control.

On April 1st, Clyde and the last surviving escapee, Methvin, killed two patrolmen, H.D. Murphy and Edward Bryant Wheeler. These murders were what finally made public opinion sway entirely to view the couple as monsters. An eyewitness came forward saying that Bonnie and Clyde fired the fatal shots and that Bonnie laughed at Murphy’s body as she shot him. The eyewitness account changed that many times that police discredited the story but public opinion didn’t flatter. A few days later newspapers posted photos of Murphy’s fiancee wearing her wedding dress to his funeral. Finally, the public was demanding the end of the Barrow gang and pushed the police to find and put an end to the gang.

Highway Patrol boss L.G. Phares put out a $1000 reward after the public began demanding the end of the Barrow gang, he said the reward was only for “the dead bodies of the Grapevine slayers” making it official that the police are only looking to kill the Bonnie and Clyde. Not long after Texas Governor Ma Fergason added a further $500 to each of the killers brought in.

Days after the bounty was put out, Clyde and Methvin killed 60-year-old Constable William Campbell near Commerce, Oklahoma. After they killed him the group kidnapped Commerce Police Chief Percy Boyd and drove him across the state line into Kansas City before releasing him with a message. Bonnie ordered Boyd that he had to inform the public that she didn’t smoke cigars. This was in reference to the famous photo of Bonnie with a cigar in her mouth and a gun.

As the gang was travelling, Hamer was plotting their every move, working out the best way to trap them. The group followed a pattern of sticking to the edge of states and visiting family whenever they passed by. Somehow Hamer found out the group were heading to Louisiana to visit Methvin’s family, it’s believed that Methvin told him to save his own life. The plan was Bonnie and Clyde would meet Methvin at his parent’s home, the trio travelling in two separate cars.

Hamer formed a posse of Texas officers and Louisiana officers. From Texas, he got Ted Hinton, Bob Alcorn and B.M. Gault and from Louisiana he got Henderson Jordan and Prentiss Oakley. This posse was set up by the Louisiana state highway 154 south of Gisland heading towards Sailes on May 21st, Hinton claimed that the trap was set up by 9 pm. This trap included parking Methvin’s truck on the side of the road with a tire removed to appear as though he was changing it., Methvin was somewhere close by with the posse, handcuffed to a tree according to some reports.

May 23rd at 9:15 am the sound of a V8 engine filled the air and the vehicle that Hamer and his posse were expecting began to speed down the road, only slowing after the driver spotted Methvin’s truck. As the car was slowing the police opened fire with automatic rifles, the clips were emptied before the car was even level with where the police were waiting. According to Hinton, Oakley shot first, instantly killing Clyde with a bullet to the brain and he remembered hearing Bonnie scream. Shotguns followed the automatics, unloading into the car as it rolled by, causing smoke to plume up as though the car had been set on fire. The car rolled by the posse and went 50 yards into a ditch, they followed emptying a pistol clip into the crashed vehicle. “We didn’t want to take any chances.” Was Hinton’s reasoning for use of all the weapons.

That was the end of Bonnie and Clyde; a hail of bullets and a smokey car.

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